The beauty of the Shawangunk Ridge is the main reason that many artists have moved to the region, says Sevan Melikyan, director of Wired Gallery in High Falls. It’s not a coincidence, he adds, that so many artists are drawn to the same thing that inspired the 19th-century Hudson River School of painters and the beginnings of the first American art. “The beauty is inspiring. The style of art may be different today, but the lifestyle and spirit is still here.”